2017 was a good year for the virtual reality (VR) industry that has taken a big step towards bringing the technology to a wider consumer and “prosumer” audiences. From a big-ticket item sold mainly to film studios and IT startups, VR camera had to work its way through to the mass market to finally become something a middle class man can afford to have.

A tweet by Sam Eckert, the developer of BitTracker app, right after its rejection by Apple’s app review team caused quite a stir that hasn’t cooled down as of yet. The reason for decline was the use of emoji inside the app that was treated as violation of the App Store Review Guidelines.

Over the last year even more companies have come to realize the true power of mobile. Mobile apps are, in fact, a key that unlocks path to bigger sales and revenues. Now mobile app development is on the rise as one of the fastest growing industry areas and you might want to know what’ll be trending in the world of mobile apps this year.

End-of-the-year holidays are known as the period when retail industry reaps the biggest harvest. Wondering if it’s “the most wonderful time of the year” for mobile game developers too, we turned to notorious analytical agencies for information.

For games that depend heavily on human interaction (MMOs in the first place), the relationships between players are of great importance. Sadly but most of them fail to build friendships or any kind of social positive relationships, because only few game designers use psychological insights into the art of friendship formation in making their titles.

Unless you’re a natural born socialite, the imminence of networking at a gaming event might set your pulse racing. There can be different reasons for why it just doesn’t feel natural to you: a fear of talking to strangers, or feeling like a liar who hides the sell message behind a casual chit-chat. However, you won’t question the usefulness of networking for one’s business, will you? Then why not just go and try to like it?

As you think of AAA games, what’s the first kind of story that comes to your mind? World rescue, or at least avenging a loved one killed by a villain. Needless to say, big games are meant to tell big stories.

Making idols for ourselves is bad in all kinds of ways, but there can be exceptions, can’t there? Folks of the mobile advertising industry have long worshipped the rewarded video ads for their outstanding performance. And there is indeed a long list of things why this ‘idolizing’ can only do good to your business.

In the world of games, retained user means a user who has played and enjoyed your game for a while. For free-to-play games this also means a user who has most likely paid. In-app purchases are known to be one of the main monetization tools for such games, so the formula ‘high retention = best monetization’ sounds fair, doesn’t it?

Without analytics, any kind of business would be same as trying to cross a high-traffic road with eyes closed. Analytics empowers game developers to get a vision of a game and its audience as a complex system with ongoing processes that can be controlled when you’ve got all necessary data.

Understanding ‘why’ might well lead you to knowing ‘how’. In terms of game design, this would mean you should learn motives that bring people into games in order to create a game with an enjoyable player experience.

Valentine’s Day coming soon, and it’s a wonderful occasion for game developers to increase their revenues and player base. In addition to the holiday-themed level packs and artwork, best deals can become the hook that draws users in.

Word of mouth has probably been the world’s oldest means of promotion. Ratings and reviews are one of its modern prototypes used widely in the digital world to enable discovery and conversion. If you’ve ever been into ASO, you are well aware that the rating and feedback given by users has major impact on how your app or game is ranked.

Have you ever kept track of time you’re spending on social media? comScore did it for you to uncover that the average daily time across major networks in U.S. is almost 1 hour per user! YouTube and Facebook are in the lead having 40 and 35 minutes of your time every day respectively. Snapchat and Instagram follow with daily rates of 25 and 15 minutes.

Let’s introduce Viber Sweets! This is a new free-to-play version of the original Bits of Sweets game released on the evolving gaming platform of Viber, a messenger listed among world’s top 5 popular chatting apps in 2016.

We’ve prepared a list of best things for those who didn’t make it to Minsk to attend DevGAMM on November 10-11. This biggest CIS gaming event gathered 1,300 participants from 22 world countries in Minsk Marriott Hotel.

Zero exposure for an app means zero downloads and no profit for your business. App Store Optimization is a tool that can give your app good ranking and chance to get noticed among several millions of other apps on Google Play and Apple App Store.

Gaming industry, just like nature, often shows us some good examples of symbiosis. Puzzle Dreams, a game development team that built a strong alliance with a publisher has proved it better than anyone else.

Excited and happy, we’re here to announce that our long-awaited new puzzle game, Amusement Park Tour, is finally out on the App Store! The match-3 app is already available for free download to iOS devices, and we can’t wait to have you all guys in the game.

Games, like sports and stories, have a pace. Pace refers to the intensity of activity at any given moment. A good author or designer will use pacing to keep people interested without wearing them out. If nothing interesting happens for long stretches, people lose interest.

It’s less than 24 hours before the most visited DevGAMM event launches in Moscow!DevGAMM is held twice a year, and the spring conference is known for attracting the biggest amount of participants. This time around 1700 gamedev guys are expected!

Our team is happy to present our first bubble shooting game released to the App Store. Bubble Fluffy is a juicy-colored mobile bubble puzzle with addictive gameplay and amazing cast of animal characters.

We’ve just celebrated one of the most important Christian holidays - Easter - the Christ’s coming alive after the Crucifixion. Aside from the religious ceremonies, a lot of entertainment events were held around the world: parades, egg rolling contests, egg hunts and sacred drama performances.

Driven by curiosity, Puzzle Dreams launched its own interpretation of the “oscars” featuring “celebrities” from the games developed by studio. With this contest we added 1,000 new page likes and reached a total of 16K Facebook users across the network.

Amazing news to make your day! Bits of Sweets, a match-3 game released last autumn, has hit the 100 thousand monthly players mark on Facebook. Inspired by this achievement, we are set to attract more. And we’ve got 3 reasons why everyone should try out our game!

For many, the game development process is wrapped in a mystery. For few, it seems like a book one has read a hundred times. This article is for both: it’s about the steps one has to take to create a game.

Being a game designer means huge responsibility and a lot of temptations. We’ve made a list of 7 sins that every game designer should avoid in his work and associated them with popular (or soon-to-be popular) game characters to make reading more fun.It’s hard to feel happy about other people’s success or avoid comparing your own game with legendary titles. Walk this way and you’ll end up either in complete despair over your imperfect game or get obsessed with becoming better than someone else. The gaming market is changing rapidly, and you might be the next big breakthrough. Focus on making your game great and enjoyable for players instead of making idols to worship.

Puzzle Dreams starts a series of lifehack articles for fellow developers. Our developers are skilled in all aspects of game making process and are happy to share bits of wisdom. They started working together back in 2014 (when trial project ‘Fairy Valley’ was created) and keep making games up to date.Most developer beginners are facing a problem of simply not having millions to spend on their dream game. We’re here to show that even a low budget can buy you success.

The game development startup Puzzle Dreams has joined the Application Developers Alliance (ADA) - a “non-profit global membership organization that supports developers as creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs”. It serves 200 companies (Google, Yahoo!, Intel, Blackberry among others) and more than 65,000 individual developers around the world. Puzzle Dreams is a developer that recently came to the social and mobile gaming market with its first cross-platform Bits of Sweets title. Our company is developing tile-matching games for Facebook, iOS and Android platforms.

With Bits of Sweets already live on two platforms and Android version coming soon, we think it’s time to start the next chapter of our story and tell about our next game that is awesome. We called this new tile-matching puzzle Amusement Park Tour and are now at the last stage of its Facebook version development. The game is set in a theme park with all kinds of attractions in it and… a swindler Basilio who steals from kids. The whole fun starts when a boy named Bobby and his pup Franklin decide to play detectives and track down the pickpocket.

As promised, the iOS version of match-3 puzzle game Bits of Sweets followed shortly after the launch on Facebook. Now gamers all over the world can enjoy the adventure with Cara and her brother Mel across different platforms, online and offline. Stalked by the witch the kids are matching candies to defeat her and continue exploring lollipop lands.

Less than a week ago the team of Puzzle Dreams took part in the fast-growing gamedev event DevGAMM in Minsk. The conference meant for developers of any size, from indie studios to industry leaders, made a giant step up this year increasing the number of annual events from 2 to 3. The Managing Director of DevGAMM Lerika Mallayeva confessed that three DevGAMMs per year was her long cherished dream, and we are happy they actually made it!

This year's third most productive gaming event better known as DevGAMM will take place in Minsk, Belarus on December 10-11. The game development studio Puzzle Dreams continues to support the conference as Gold sponsor and permanent attendee. Not only because DevGAMM contributes to overall industry development serving as a bridge where the specialists of all gaming areas can meet and mingle, but also as a partner of the current organizer Renatus.

Great news! Today our long-awaited game kicked off on Facebook to engage hundreds of casual game fans in a wickedly sweet candy-matching adventure with two kids and one ghastly witch. Bits of Sweets is an eye candy game developed by our team entirely from scratch. Mouthwatering setting crammed with candy goes perfectly well with a story inspired by dark Grimms’ tales. Two kids, Cara and Mel, are making a perilous trip across the land of sweets. And there’s this scary witch who can eat them any moment, unless…

What is the best way to introduce your сompany to the world? Going to a major industry event seems perfect for letting everyone know about your brand and product. When the idea popped up at one of the brainstorming sessions at Puzzle Dreams, it didn’t take them long to choose the right event. Next DevGAMM conference seemed the best option because of the venue and the role it once played in the lives of PD founders.

Having successfully worked together on a project Fairy Valley, we decided to take up something more ambitious. After long hours of creation of new idea, we decided to settle on the kids and fairy-tale motives. The plot of Bits of Sweets develops in a magical candy land filled with gingerbread houses and trees of sweet cotton wool.

The story of Puzzle Dreams foundation is something one would definitely call a cliché story of how your dream can come true one fine day, making way to the next bigger one.It’s about a few talented men with a great passion for developing entertaining content, who were in the right place at the right time to meet each other and change their lives forever. DevGAMM Minsk, a successful gamedev conference, was that place and a starting point for energetic cooperation that culminated in establishment of new game development studio with a telling name Puzzle Dreams.